Fundamentalists and Atheists: Two peas in a pod?

[Contarini]

Why should an open-minded person accept what the Church considers Tradition?

Only if you find it appealing and compelling. And there are all sorts of reasons why people sometimes do. If you don’t, it is not my purpose here and now to persuade you otherwise. Perhaps some day it will grab you. Perhaps it won’t. (Objectively, the strongest starting point is the resurrection of Jesus. But that would be another thread, and one that has been frequently discussed anyway.)

But in the meantime you could be less cavalier and arrogant in telling Christians what rules we are supposed to follow in interpreting our own Scriptures, just as I refrain from telling Muslims and others how to interpret their sacred texts.

It’s not clear. RebeccaJ says that God’s giving of the Ten Commandments was God communicating with Moses.
The Ten Commandments are told to Moses as part of his speech that runs from Exodus 20 through 24.

Note that in Exodus 20:18-21 the people are terrified and beg Moses to mediate between them and God. So Rebecca is right–the text does in fact make a break after the Ten Commandments. (Though I suspect that she’s mostly following Tradition in singling out the Ten Commandments–and quite rightly too.) In fact, it doesn’t say that they heard or understood what God said–it seems to imply that they just saw a lot of smoke and heard a lot of noise.

Again, bear in mind that I’m accepting (as Rebecca may not) the basic claims of historical criticism that these texts were almost certainly written much later in the form we have them. I do not take any of this to be “literal” in the sense of a transcript of something that was really said (in Hebrew? which almost certainly didn’t exist at the time?) in either the thirteenth or fifteenth century B.C.

I take it as a highly stylized, symbolic narrative written centuries later to embody convictions that had grown up (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) in the Jewish community about how God had revealed Himself to them.

That includes such things as that it’s ok to manslaughter your slaves, that slaves are property, and that sorcerers should be killed. You and she should determine what was and was not spoken by God and in turn tell everyone why it’s so “clear” that it’s legendary.

So you believe that this literally happened? And you’re an atheist? This makes absolutely no sense.

The idea of an atheist who doesn’t accept basic historical criticism is kind of flabbergasting to me. It takes the OP’s claim about atheism and fundamentalism to new levels

Why isn’t it historically plausible for God to have given his speech in Exodus 20-24 in the span of time between when the Israelites escaped Egypt and before Moses climbed Mount Sanai.

It is historically implausible that these texts date from the second millennium B.C.

For a fairly brief and accessible summary of historical-critical views on the OT (actually in a pretty modest, conservative form), with a few idiosyncratic opinions that I find fascinating and fairly plausible about who wrote some of the books, see Richard Elliott Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible.. These days, most scholars probably take a more “minimalist,” skeptical view than that. But of course, on the other hand most Christians hold to a more conservative view. So Friedman is a good place to start. (Kitchen’s The Historical Reliability of the Old Testament is a conservative alternative.)

These assumptions that you say I’m imposing come from simply reading the Bible.

Of course, no one reads the Bible in a vacuum. . . . .

But again, you prove the OP’s point. As a 21st-century person, you think you can just pick up a very ancient text and figure out when it was written by reading it, without paying any attention to the scholarship. If that isn’t a fundamentalist approach, I don’t know what would be:shrug:

I have to ask any Christians following this thread, do you think based on the reading of the Bible for it to have possibly occurred while the Israelites were wandered the desert?

Why, as an atheist, would you reject the conclusions of most critical scholars? I get why many conservative Christians and Jews do this. But why would you?

 

[Contarini]

If it is not true that God gave those instructions to Moses and if it is flat out wrong as to the time when these laws came about then it should be fair to say that is inaccurate.

As a historical account of the origins of Jewish law, I’m pretty sure it is inaccurate.

I’m sure you think this should have some sort of massive implications for my faith, but it just doesn’t.

On the contrary, accepting historical criticism is very helpful, for me personally, in helping me work through the difficult issues you are raising.

As you have pointed out very well, if we take the Torah to be “literally” God’s speech to ancient Hebrews revealing in precise detail his will for how they are to live as an example to the nations of what God wants for human beings in general, then it is not believable. That is to say, there are many things in the Torah that poorly reflect the character we believe God to have. I say this with all respect to Orthodox Jews, who do in fact believe in the perfection of the Torah. (But like traditional Christians, they have their own canons of interpretation that allow them to deal with some of these issues. And it’s not my job to either defend or criticize them here.)

It’s explanations like these which state that God says it would be wrong to be influenced by other cultures while at the same time it is not wrong to be influenced by other cultures that many atheists find not very convincing in their contradictory nature.

Because you’re beginning from the wrong end entirely. You’re disregarding all historical scholarship and assuming a very conservative Jewish/Christian view of when it was written and what kind of text it is, and then arguing against that. This makes no sense for an atheist.

A time when a nation is without slaves and had just escaped from slavery is as good a fresh start as any to make clear how evil slavery is.

But again, no serious historical scholar I know of (except perhaps some very conservative scholars whose religious commitments force them to accept this highly improbable premise) thinks that these laws were given in some sort of cultural vacuum to people without slaves.

Because we know the following pieces of information:

1. Roughly when the Torah was created.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say “know,” but I think it is indeed overwhelmingly likely that the Torah took its final form after the exile.

But you have been appearing to accept, uncritically, the idea that the Torah was created in the form we have it in the second millennium B.C., after a real escape from Egypt led by a real leader called Moses. This is an extremely conservative position for an atheist to take. (I myself believe that there was a real Exodus and perhaps even a real Moses, but then I’m a pretty conservative Christian.)

“We” certainly don’t “know” anything of the sort, if by “we” you mean “people using historical methods to study the Bible.” Such people, in fact, are pretty sure that the Torah was written long after the time of Moses, and indeed these days generally scoff at the idea that any such person existed or even that there was an Exodus at all.

I have no idea why you would these basic facts would be “an ultra-conservative view of the origins of the Torah” or that these facts hinge on my belief in whether I think the Torah or the Bible is accurate.

Believing that the Torah was written in the second millennium B.C. is an ultraconservative view, and it’s hard to see why anyone would believe it except for reasons of faith. I don’t believe it, because I don’t find it historically believable.

You or I don’t need to believe the Book of Mormon is correct to state that it was published after the Bible and that the Book of Mormon repeatedly quotes Romans from the Bible.

Right. But if you were to tell me that the Book of Mormon was written in ancient times and inscribed on gold tablets, etc., I would start scratching my head and wondering why a non-Mormon accepted such things.

I hope in these many overly verbose posts I’ve made in this thread that I’ve squashed the notion that all or even most atheists demand a literal reading of Scripture, just a well-explained one.

Actually, if I had never thought of the idea that atheists take a fundamentalist approach to Scripture, your posts would have proved quite solidly that at least one atheist does!

You have proven the OP’s thesis at every turn, right down to your quite astounding apparent acceptance of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, which is a first in my experience of talking to atheists

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

In this list of translations for Exodus 21:21, eight of them have it as “the slave is his property”.

In this list of translations for Leviticus 25:45, eight of them describe slaves as property and nine of them describe slaves as possessions.

Will I get a brief, “Okay Mike, you were right on that one.”?

First of all, I wasn’t challenging your translation in my earlier post, but your claim about “God saying” that slaves were property.

Just to be precise, though, there are two different words here. In the Exodus passage the Hebrew word is “keseph,” which means most basically “silver” or “money.” So the slave is “keseph” because he was bought. In the other, the word is “ahuzah,” which usually means landed property or inheritance. Certainly both words can legitimately be translated as “property.” However, when we talk about a person being property, because of Enlightenment assumptions about the implication of human dignity we assume that this is saying that the person isn’t really a person. And clearly that’s not the case in the Exodus passage–you don’t “avenge” property, even if it dies on the spot.

Did Abraham not convince God to reduce the number of righteous men needed not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah from 50 to 10? Did Satan not convince God to allow him to do anything he wanted to Job and his family apart from killing him? You should give a reason why a person from a neutral position must take your understanding that God never spoke to anyone in the Old Testament, and also what the true meaning of those passages are if not literal.

I never said that God never spoke to anyone. You just made the point, again, that you do in fact assume that any real meaning must be “literal.”

The reason why God obviously did not “literally” speak to anyone outside the Incarnation is that God does not have vocal chords (again, leaving the Incarnation out of it).

Or, to go a bit farther, because God by definition surpasses all categories drawn from creatures (which all our categories, inevitably, are). Nothing we say can be true of God in exactly the same way it’s true of creatures. Hence, to use your own sacred text dictionary.com, it can’t be “literally” true, because it isn’t going to be true in its “primary and strict sense.” That is just an implication of believing in God at all.

How can it tell us about God’s purposes if you disavow any action God may have done in that story?

And again, you make the OP’s point nicely by assuming that “God’s actions are not literal” means “God does not act.”

God is acting and speaking all through Scripture.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I missed this post. I will try not to repeat myself any more than I already have

And this falls into the points I presented at the start of the thread. Why should be we take that none of what is claimed to be from the mouth of God, including The Commandments and The Burning Bush, was not actually said? Any other Christians reading this, what do you say to the idea that God didn’t say anything in the Old Testament?

Did not literally say anything. As in, God does not (apart from Jesus) have vocal chords. Hence, when Scripture says “God spoke,” we need to inquire into what it means–the one thing we know is that it can’t mean exactly what it means when we say “Edwin spoke.”

Also, one point you missed was that I was specifically rejecting your claim that “God the Father” spoke in the OT. The works of the Trinity are indivisible, and the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, is the one in whom all God’s works of creation and revelation are accomplished.

I have every right to speak my peace on the matter.

Sure. You have a legal right to say whatever you like. But when you take it upon yourself to declare the rules by which Christians interpret their own Scriptures, you’re doing something unreasonable and even absurd.

It’s a hope that those who believe what the Bible says think it is true and are not willing to brush certain passages aside if they becomes inconvenient. It’s a hope that an equal level of open-mindedness comes from the apologist as is expected of the atheist.

And I have the same hope in reverse–so far it has not, particularly, been gratified. I do appreciate your clarity and honesty and desire to seek the truth. But I think your ideas about how language works, how we read texts, how traditions function, etc., are far too naive, and that you are far too confident in that naivete.

I went over this in an earlier post. If they don’t want to explain anything to atheists like me that is their prerogative, but it gets that much harder to convince others to convert to Catholicism or keep others from converting away from Catholicism if it can’t or won’t give reasoning for why they state what they state.

No one is refusing to give reasoning. But the reasoning doesn’t have to play by your rules.

Of course, as long as you adhere to the kind of rationalism you presently seem to hold, you aren’t going to be convinced of Catholicism. I’m not trying to convince you of the truth of Christianity at this point. The main subject of this thread is the claim that atheism and fundamentalism are “two peas in a pod,” and you have demonstrated this claim to be true in your case at least. The main point I’m trying to get through to you, just as I would to a fundamentalist, is that your assumptions about what divine revelation would look like if it existed are rather arbitrary and are shaped by all kinds of cultural factors that are (like everything else) worth questioning. I have more hope of getting this through to you than to a fundamentalist, and you may take that as a compliment, however modest, to you personally and to atheists in general

But seriously I think you are forgetting that the various Christian churches do not and have not agreed on interpretation for several different parts of Scripture. By definition and least some of these interpretations that these churches make are false.

What makes you think that I have “forgotten” any such thing?

Remember this whole thing started when the OP stated that atheists require a literal reading of the Bible, and I wanted to show that we’d accept a non-literal reading but only when given sufficient reason to do so.

Which is exactly what fundamentalists say.

I think people should read a multitude of books, holy books, philosophy, art, history, literature, and seek truth where it may lead.

And there, at least, we entirely agree

Edwin

 

[icamhif]

As a former Evangelical, I can say that it’s so refreshing to know that one doesn’t have to try to defend the traditional authorship, date, or even inerrancy of the Bible in order to be Catholic or Orthodox.

 

[icamhif]

I don’t think it’s fair to characterize all atheists who appear to take a literalist approach to Scripture as fundamentalists. I can understand why anyone reading a piece of literature would think that a “face-value” interpretation deserves the favorable end of Occam’s Razor. In fact, that same reasoning is how I became convinced of the Real Presence.

 

[Contarini]

I don’t think it’s fair to characterize all atheists who appear to take a literalist approach to Scripture as fundamentalists. I can understand why anyone reading a piece of literature would think that a “face-value” interpretation deserves the favorable end of Occam’s Razor. In fact, that same reasoning is how I became convinced of the Real Presence.

I can understand why someone who did not understand literature very well would think this, yes.

Of course we all go with the “face-value” interpretation unless we have reason not to. But “face-value” actually means “interpreted through the lens of our own culture, personality, and experiences.” Not a bad way to read a work of literature if you’re just looking for personal enrichment. (I’ve been rereading the Odyssey, and getting a lot of insights out of it–but I’m sure that a scholar of ancient Greece would tell me that a lot of my brilliant interpretations are really anachronistic.) A very bad basis for pontifications about the supposed flaws of a tradition based on some other way of interpreting the text.

I am happy that you believe in the Real Presence, but the classical articulations of the Real Presence (Aquinas, for instance) would not possibly occur to someone reading the Bible at “face value.” A lot of the claims about the Real Presence made on this forum, particularly about the supposed “literal reading of Scripture” that leads to believing in the Real Presence, do strike me as fundamentalist.

What a lot of us mean by “fundamentalist” is exactly what Mike has been articulating: the view that one can “just read the Bible” and get a “face-value meaning” which is to be taken as the one and only true meaning unless someone can provide a “reasonable” argument to the contrary, where “reasonable” is judged by the reader’s anachronistic, “commonsense” standards.

There are two distinct ways of reading the Bible that are much better than this:

1. A serious scholarly study of the Bible in its original historical context; and
2. A theological and spiritual study of the Bible, submitting oneself in humility to the wisdom of the saints and Doctors of the Church and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Edwin

 

[icamhif]

I can understand why someone who did not understand literature very well would think this, yes.

Of course we all go with the “face-value” interpretation unless we have reason not to. But “face-value” actually means “interpreted through the lens of our own culture, personality, and experiences.” Not a bad way to read a work of literature if you’re just looking for personal enrichment. (I’ve been rereading the Odyssey, and getting a lot of insights out of it–but I’m sure that a scholar of ancient Greece would tell me that a lot of my brilliant interpretations are really anachronistic.) A very bad basis for pontifications about the supposed flaws of a tradition based on some other way of interpreting the text.

I am happy that you believe in the Real Presence, but the classical articulations of the Real Presence (Aquinas, for instance) would not possibly occur to someone reading the Bible at “face value.” A lot of the claims about the Real Presence made on this forum, particularly about the supposed “literal reading of Scripture” that leads to believing in the Real Presence, do strike me as fundamentalist.

What a lot of us mean by “fundamentalist” is exactly what Mike has been articulating: the view that one can “just read the Bible” and get a “face-value meaning” which is to be taken as the one and only true meaning unless someone can provide a “reasonable” argument to the contrary, where “reasonable” is judged by the reader’s anachronistic, “commonsense” standards.

There are two distinct ways of reading the Bible that are much better than this:

1. A serious scholarly study of the Bible in its original historical context; and
2. A theological and spiritual study of the Bible, submitting oneself in humility to the wisdom of the saints and Doctors of the Church and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Edwin

Good points.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Contarini,

I’m condensing the many comments regarding what the definition of “literal” into this section.

You mentioned three times how my responses have proved the OP’s statement:

“When interpreting Scriptures, both factions insist on a literalist translation, ignoring genre, original audience, and idiom.”

I stated multiple times that I am fine with a non-literal (literal as commonly defined) provided that one can give reasons why and it doesn’t lead to further complications (see all the suggested guidelines from early in the thread).

I simply do not care what phraseology you use so long as we are understanding each other. If you wanted to call the four senses Dirk, Stig, Nasty, and Barry that’s fine so long as we agree what those terms mean. And that’s key. The whole point of language is for clear communication. Using a term like “literal” to describe something figurative is not conducive to communication.

And you’re fixating on using this term despite the fact that the term isn’t the issue that I’m concerned about. It’s whether we can call passages of the Bible true and whether atheists are looking at those passages correctly.

So instead of continuing to grind this discussion to a halt, so we can communicate with each other what term would you use to describe reading a passage literally using the word literally as it’s understood today? I’m going to use the term as-plainly-written from this point just so we can back on topic. If you prefer a different term, please let me know.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Again, these terms are fairly limited.

Genesis 1 is a theological account of creation–I have no problem calling it myth, but many other Christians do. It’s pretty clearly a critique of Babylonian creation stories. I think that even when you say “figurative,” you imagine that there must be something that the story is telling us about the order in which the universe was created.

And maybe there is. I’m open to that possibility, but as you note there are some difficulties with the idea.

Difficulties indeed. It’s possible to present a story that is figuratively active without introducing false elements. And when I say false elements I mean details that are not true in any as-plainly-written or not-as-plainly-written way. If we allow for these false elements in this part of Scripture, what other false elements lurk in other parts of Scripture? What percentage of a tale can be false while the Church still considers it true? 20%? 50%? 90%?

Troublesome to whom and why?

Troublesome for those who wish to state that Genesis 1 is true while acknowledging that in some ways it is false. The author made a specific point of adding and describing that element without there being a way for that element to be true.

And that’s why the whole “literal/nonliteral” discussion is unhelpful. Why do you decree that Christians must believe that the text is telling us something authoritative about the details of cosmology in the first place?

It just needs to be true and not contain falsehoods. Couldn’t the author have described the creation in one of any number of forms without adding untrue details?

I’m happy to do that, ad nauseam.

Then please start.

And I agree that just saying “the reading isn’t literal” is inadequate. As, on the other hand, is saying “I’m just reading the text literally, so why aren’t you doing the same?”

At not point am I telling people that they must read the text literally (as-plainly-written), merely that if you are not going to read it that way please explain why you would do so.

For instance, in Genesis 1 you’re hung up on the question of what individual words mean. But you don’t seem to have bothered to step back to ask what the nature and purpose of the passage as a whole is in the first place.

In the story of Baba Yaga, the phrase “chicken legs” really does mean that, within the world of the story, we’re to envision a hut with legs like those of a domestic bird. But that doesn’t mean that when I read my daughters the story I expect them to believe that there really is a witch who lives in such a hut (although for all I know there might be, or might once have been).

Do you really want to compare the Bible to outright fiction? I’ve never read that story, but what you’re describing is a literal (as-plainly-written) story that is not true. Whether a story is true and whether a story is to be read as-plainly-written are independent of each other.

Then your entire approach makes no sense at all.

It makes perfect sense, especially in light of what you’ve said repeatedly about how atheists have nothing to add to the conversation as to how to interpret Scripture. Atheists are not the final arbiter on the subject, but neither are Christians or any particular subset of Christians.

Which you seem to think you are, on the Bible.

I’m not the final word. No one is. But if someone speaks on the subject and it feels like it’s whitewashing then I’ll speak my peace. No one group can say they can’t be questioned on what they say.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

God doesn’t change. Our understanding does, and our understanding is influenced by many factors. Culture being one of those. For Christians, Jesus Christ dramatically changes our understanding.

We view Revelation as something that occurred over time, increment by increment. Our understanding of what is Revealed, grows, in time. God reveals more, over time, culminating to the perfect Revelation of Jesus Christ. But what we are seeking to understand does not change.

Then explain why if it culminates with this “perfect Revelation of Jesus Christ” that he speaks for and not against slavery.

Neither of us are the Catholic Magisterium. The Magisterium doesn’t rule our every thought. We are free to come to our conclusion, in a lot of ways, about a lot of things.

I completely agree, we are able to come to our own conclusions. The trick is when one person states that he or she has concluded a piece of Scripture is literal and another says it is not literal and still another says it is not literal in a way different than the others. That’s not to say because we can’t come up with something conclusive that there should be no discussion, far from it. If the calls for a certain reading are not compelling, don’t be surprised if others think the reason why there are calls for that reading are to backslide what conclusions other readings give.

You’re still going with an idea that scripture is quoting God, verbatim. That’s your prerogative, but from my view, there are very rare instances where that actually occurs.

If that is the case then we have the questions I asked including but not limited to:

• How do we determine whether a quote from God (or any character in the Bible for that matter) is being quoted verbatim or not?
• What are the compelling reasons to state a bit of speech in the Bible was not said verbatim?
• If a bit of speech was not written verbatim, was it paraphrased?
• If it was paraphrased how close to the actual spoken words is that paraphrase?
• Are there additional untrue elements included in the paraphrase?
• Is it possible for speech written to not have been spoken at all? What is the compelling reason to believe that is the case?
• If a piece of speech was not spoken at all, was it instead imparted in some non-verbal way?
• If a piece of speech was not spoken at all, is it merely an assumption of God’s wishes? If so, how accurate is it?
• After going through these questions can we still say that it is true in some form – even if it contains untrue elements?
• If we believe God was involved in some way, verbally or non-verbally, can we still say that God is good?

I think you miss the point of the Law regarding slaves, entirely. The culture included slavery, as have all cultures until relatively recently. The Law put in place unprecedented good treatment of slaves, that were not adhered to by the cultures around the Hebrews. God did not say, “thou shalt have slaves”.

Would it fair to say that by the law that God is allowing his people to have slaves?

The Law defines how slaves should be treated. If you don’t have slaves, then this Law doesn’t apply to you.

I think you’re forgetting one group of people not owning slaves that still had the law applied to them: The slaves themselves.

But really, the Law doesn’t apply to you at all, unless you are a Jew, and a Jew who is not a Christian. The Law for us, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

The Law for us, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ." is a nonsense statement. My trouble is that the laws allowing the owning and abuse of slaves was evil. Just because that law is no longer active doesn’t mean that it wasn’t evil when it was active.

So in that context, of fulfillment, the Law regarding slaves was meant to bring the Hebrews to an understanding that slaves are a part of the community, of the People of God, and should be accorded treatment that excludes them from an “other than themselves” category. When we view people as “other”, we treat them poorly. Jesus amplified that, to bringing us to the understanding that there is no “other”.

Our understanding changes over time. Today, we view slavery as one of the ultimate ways to treat another person as “other”. This is not the view of slavery, from the Hebrews. They simultaneously viewed a person as a slave, and as part of the community (tribe) to which they belonged.

The two views are incompatible with each other, especially when the first view allows for beatings, manslaughter, and rape.

That is your journey. I have no formula to give you. I can only recommend that you include prayer with your study of scripture. By that I mean, ask what God is saying to you, rather than assume what you think God is saying to you. I’m not trying to convince you to convert, or something, just this is what we do. And if you want to know the how of what we believe, then prayer is a must.

I didn’t mean the question as an internal one but as an evidentiary one. What could be presented to others to show the authors of the Bible as infallible, and can be done in a way that the authors of other holy books can not be?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

No, it implies nothing of the kind. It implies that this particular text, taken on its own in its most probable “grammatical-historical” context, does not adequately reveal God. When taken together with the rest of Scripture and Tradition, we see that it is not in fact an affirmation that slaves are property.

It implies that the reading of the text for those who want to backslide against God calling slaves property is to say that a reading of a text can mean its exact opposite. There is a term in grammar for when a text is to read as its opposite meaning: Sarcasm. I understand that there are idioms and other figurative terminology so that what is meant is different from its plain, literal meaning; but in those cases there is a link/connection to what is said. I’m fully aware that “raining cats and dogs” doesn’t mean actual cats and dogs were involved, but by your application of text-reading it can be used to describe a bright and sunny day.

And since you don’t believe in God, your continued use of the phrase “God told” is disingenuous.

I can say “Sherlock Holmes said” when describing “The Hound of the Baskervilles” without believing that Sherlock Holmes was a real person. That’s obscenely obvious.

You don’t believe that God exists to tell anyone anything. I don’t believe that the Torah is direct divine speech. So why the continued pretense that both of us believe something that neither of us actually believes?

Because whether it was direct speech or not, symbolic or not, it is implied that the wisdom (a term used loosely) imparted to the Israelites came from God in some way. If that wisdom is wretched then it’s hard to then claim that God is purely good.

Both of us believe that the Torah was compiled by human beings. I believe that they were guided and inspired by God in so doing, and you don’t. But neither of us believes that in the Torah we are simply dealing with the direct words of God.

If you were the sole Christian, or if all Christians thought the same as you, of if the Catholic Church made a pronouncement that each and every time it was claimed God spoke in the Old Testament (yet somehow could lay out a logical line of reasoning that explained why they still thought those passages were true) then I might cease asking what we do about those passages where God is said to have spoken.

Circumcision was actually practiced by a number of other cultures.

Yes, but I hoped you’d get the gist, especially since I mentioned the Sabbath a mere sentence earlier. From a literal reading of the Bible God had his people follow a certain of practices, some of which were not followed by several of the surrounding cultures, and some that were not followed by any of the surrounding cultures. These practices include circumcision, Sabbath honoring, dietary restrictions, and clothing restrictions. It is to demonstrate – quite clearly – that any excuse for slavery that calls upon what other cultures did is patently false and demonstrably hollow.

Nope. It follows that ancient people had a lot less trouble understanding that rituals were important (especially a ritual practiced by a number of cultures anyway) than that people were not property. Although I think that this way of putting it is questionable, since it presupposes some assumptions about what it means to be “people” vs. “property” that only really make sense after the Enlightenment (more on that in a minute).

Nope it doesn’t follow. My statement was about God and you altered it to be about the people.

You keep using this word “reasonably.” I don’t think you are sufficiently self-critical about your standards for what is “reasonable.” The assumptions you seem to be working from (and it’s hard to discern them, because you seem unaware of them) don’t make any sense if God exists in the first place. Of course I would not expect an atheist to have a good sense of what a text inspired by God would or would not look like. But what is frustrating is that you seem to think you know, even though you don’t believe in God. And that makes no sense.

The “God” you seem to have in mind obviously does not exist. But that should have been clear from the start. Why, then, do you keep flailing away at this obvious straw man?

I would expect someone who has been so prolific on a message board to know the proper use of the term “straw man”, yet here we are.

Actually yes. I do not expect the level of politeness and concern for others from my three-year-old that I do from my eight-year-old. Furthermore, and much more to the point, I’m sure my eight-year-old has a much better understanding of what I want of her than my three year old does.

And even more to the point, God is not literally a parent. God is not (apart from the Incarnation) of the same species we are (or of any species or category at all). God’s relationship to us is analogous to that of a parent to a child, but it’s not the same.

And I didn’t say it was literally parent-to-child but similar. For the future, if you think I said something check what I actually said. Odds are you are mistaken.

The basic problem here, as with most conversations I have with atheists, is that you seem to have no idea what orthodox Christians actually mean when we say “God.”

I find that more than a few Christians don’t have a firm idea as to what they mean when they say “God” in some cases changing between sentences of the same conversation.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

But of course, I don’t grant that “God states slaves are property.”

In fact, the text as a whole clearly says that the slave is not merely property. If he dies “under the master’s hand,” he is to be “avenged.” The Hebrew “nqm” means “avenge” or “punish”–the point is that it’s a strong word usually referring to killing a murderer. A person who is merely “property” and not treated as a human being is not going to be avenged when killed.

So God says in some instances that slaves are merely sub-humans slightly more important than work animals. Great. As far as the avenging I’ll get to that below.

In other words, yes the text is stating the opposite of what you think it is. The phrase “for he is his silver” (the Hebrew is “ksph” which means silver or money) certainly modifies the previous sentence’s affirmation of the slave’s humanity and dignity. This would be a problem if we believed that the OT laws are perfect representations of God’s will for humanity. But we don’t. At least I don’t (I’ll let others speak for themselves).

I believe that others feel that the OT laws came from God. Whether one discards them willy-nilly is up to the specific reader.

But obviously that’s not the case here. The law, taken as a whole, is clearly saying that the slave is more than just “property.” But the fact that he has been bought with money is taken to give the owner some leeway, so that if the slave doesn’t die right away the owner will not be punished as a murderer.

It doesn’t say that the slaveowner gets punished as a murderer. Look at Exodus 21:28-32 to see the difference in punishment between killing a slave and nonslave. If a bull kills a man and the bullowner was already warned that the bull had a habit of goring, then the owner was to be put to death (It should be noted if a bull kills a son or daughter the family can demand payment from the owner in exchange for not being killed). Does the bull owner get killed if the bull gores a slave? Nope! 30 shekels of silver covers that just fine. Punishments for killing a slave are far less than that of killing a non-slave.

In other words, the slave is not given equal rights, for sure. But if you read the passage in a truly reasonable way, as an ancient law code, what would strike you would be the fact that the slave is to be avenged if he dies on the spot. Can you point me to other ancient Near Eastern law codes that give the lives of slaves such value?

I can’t keep stressing this enough – a purely good God would not allow slightly less appalling slavery. It doesn’t matter what other cultures did with slavery. If God can demand no work be done on the Sabbath then he could have just as easily demanded his people demonstrate even the slightest shred of humanity to his fellow man.

But obviously it isn’t 180 degrees different. The worth of the slave’s life is affirmed, but with a caveat that obviously would not have been there in a more perfect representation of God’s will (in which, in fact, there would be no slavery at all).

There are two statement where it says slaves are property, then other statements that state they are not totally without rights.

Imagine a book that twice says that Jimmy Carter was never president then lists several acts he did as president. Sure, on average the book says the Jimmy Carter was a president; but it includes contradictory statements. No one would try to point to those completely incorrect statements and state that they are not 180 degrees different from what they say.

(continued on next post)

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

(continued from previous post)

If by “allows for” you mean “permits people to do it, and even permits them to believe that he’s OK with it,” then yes–this is a subset of the problem of evil. And as you know, the most common Christian answer has to do with free will.

It more than allows it, it says that these actions are allowed with great specificity. It’s amidst other rules the Hebrews were told to follow.

Let’s say a town allows one to capture and hold people against their will but can’t beat them on Thursdays. By laying out specifics as to what can and can’t be done then it’s clear that it’s not entirely against the idea of holding people against their will. If the passages give specific instruction on beating slaves, selling one’s daughter into slavery, and all the many disgusting passages we’ve covered already it’s by no means silent on the matter and definitely more than just “permitting” it.

That would also be my answer here. God did not coerce people into the truth. God led them gradually. The God you and fundamentalists imagine, who just says “Bam–here’s what I want in black and white,” obviously does not exist.

Whenever you have a disagreement with other Christians you seem to use terms like “obviously” or “serious” scholars.

It is not clear to me that you have even imagined the possibility of God as I believe in God. I’m trying, no doubt poorly, to jolt you into an awareness that there are other ways of thinking about God than the ones you consider possible. But as long as you are locked into your present set of assumptions, you will probably just hear this as a dishonest dodge.

Your dodge has nothing to do with my assumptions and everything to do with your dodge

I am not a moral relativist. I believe that there are moral absolutes.

However, by the standards of EWTN and many other conservatives I often seem like a moral relativist, because I believe that our perception of goodness is always imperfect, always mediated by our culture, our personalities, etc.

And yes, that applies even to Scripture, if we are talking about selected bits of Scripture taken out of the context of the whole (the whole including not only Scripture as a whole but also the ongoing, living Tradition of the Church).

That’s good to know.

That is certainly the literary device under which it is presented.

Right, but you said, “First of all, ‘God the Father’ doesn’t say much in Scripture, even as a literary character.” My statement was to explain how your statement is incorrect.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I just want to clarify one thing I said.

“Our understanding changes over time. Today, we view slavery as one of the ultimate ways to treat another person as “other”. This is not the view of slavery, from the Hebrews. They simultaneously viewed a person as a slave, and as part of the community (tribe) to which they belonged.”

This has qualifiers, of course. There were different types of slavery among the ancient Hebrews. One was, what we call today, indentured servitude. In some Biblical translations, the word “servant” will be used instead of “slave”, to denote that the person was not a slave, of our modern understanding.

They had very few freedoms. They could be beaten. They could be killed in some circumstances. That matches with my understanding of slavery.

Then there were slaves who were, essentially, prisoners of war. I view this as analogous to people who are in prison. They are, essentially, property of the state. Having some rights, but not all the rights of those who are not in prison. But we have laws in how prisoners should be treated.

We don’t keep the children of prisoners as perpetual inmates.

So in the case of a Hebrew slave who dies under the discipline of his master, the judicial laws of the Hebrews blamed the master. But if the slave survived, the benefit of the doubt was given to the master. I see it as a matter of station, that is, a man with a good reputation, who is not slave because of debt or war against their own community, was viewed by the society as more credible than someone who was “property”.

Such questions of reputation (an argument that I feel is merely a whitewashing of evil) would not be needed if God didn’t state that it was perfectly good to beat a slave to the point of incapacitation and even eventual death.

You conveniently left out a few different types of slavery among the ancient reviews:

1. Those slaves who were purchased from other nations and temporary residents from within the nation. This is the passage I’ve referenced several times this thread, Leviticus 25:44-45. What excuses do you give for treating those people so poorly (i.e. as property that can be disposed of)?
2. Those sold into slavery as children. This usually involves girls forced to please a slaveowner or one of his sons sexually against her will.
3. Those born into slavery. What debt did those babies incur in the womb to be in eternal servitude?

Among the Hebrews the prisoners of war, type slaves, were often from the tribe of their long time foes, the Canaanites. Absolutely, the Hebrews viewed the Canaanites as “other”. Not deserving of any good treatment, at all. The Law made it so even their hated enemy, was afforded treatment under a form of justice.

The slavery laws being judicial not religious requirements. By that I mean, circumcision was a religious requirement. How a slave is treated was judicial. The Hebrews received both types of Law from God. In our society, especially among atheists, the two types of laws are viewed as strictly separate from the will of God. This is not the view of the Hebrews.

Whether the laws are judicial as opposed to religious should not matter in the slightest if they derive in some way from God. They should not tell people to inflict suffering on others.

Even then, Hebrews would not keep a slave as chattel, and I think, Mike from Jersey, that this is where your mind/thoughts are going with the word “property”. It is not what the text is conveying. Hebrew slaves were slaves because they owed their master something. Indentured servitude, slaves, owed a dept. Prisoners of war, owed reparations for war. While owing the master something, you were their slave, but the Hebrews had a time limit of 7 years. At which point, the person could choose to remain as a slave, or was free to do something else. (Yes, people chose to remain a slave. For many, it was the only socio-economic choice, having no other means to live. And for many, they had become part of the family, and there were strong relationships formed, where the former slave didn’t want to leave, and their former masters didn’t want them to leave.)

Again you’re conveniently leaving out a few key points:

1. That limit of 7 years only counts for male Hebrew slaves not born into slavery. Women and children were slaves for life.
2. If a male Hebrew slave gained a wife and/or children during his servitude they were not set free along with him. The slave had to choose to stay (or more accurately, submit to blackmail). Yes some slaves after being released will choose to stay with a master because of a lack of economic opportunities; but how to you explain forcing those who had paid their debts to have to choose between freedom and family? It’s a terrible thing.

The Hebrew experience as slaves under the Egyptians, prohibited them from ever treating any other person or tribe in the same way as they were treated. The Hebrews never kept slaves in a chattel type form of slavery.

Except for beating them, manslaughtering them, purchasing them, breeding them to make more slaves, forcing them to have sex, and not allowing them to leave of their own freewill. Yes, except for all of that it’s a totally different form of slavery.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Only if you find it appealing and compelling. And there are all sorts of reasons why people sometimes do. If you don’t, it is not my purpose here and now to persuade you otherwise. Perhaps some day it will grab you. Perhaps it won’t. (Objectively, the strongest starting point is the resurrection of Jesus. But that would be another thread, and one that has been frequently discussed anyway.)

But in the meantime you could be less cavalier and arrogant in telling Christians what rules we are supposed to follow in interpreting our own Scriptures, just as I refrain from telling Muslims and others how to interpret their sacred texts.

My “rules” are merely ways to show in a logical manner why an outsider may be convinced to read Scripture in a way other than an as-plainly-written manner. Christians and non-Christians are going to point out moral and ethical problems with the Bible (e.g. God considering Lot to be a righteous man despite trying to have an entire town gangrape his daughters). If the responses to those problems are reasonable, then perhaps those people will no longer see them as problems. If the responses aren’t explanations but chidings for not believing then more and more people will continue to point out those problems.

Note that in Exodus 20:18-21 the people are terrified and beg Moses to mediate between them and God. So Rebecca is right–the text does in fact make a break after the Ten Commandments. (Though I suspect that she’s mostly following Tradition in singling out the Ten Commandments–and quite rightly too.) In fact, it doesn’t say that they heard or understood what God said–it seems to imply that they just saw a lot of smoke and heard a lot of noise.

It’s still the same conversation even of the others drop out leaving only Moses. Exodus 24:1-4 says that Moses heard and wrote down what God told him and told that to the people.

Again, bear in mind that I’m accepting (as Rebecca may not) the basic claims of historical criticism that these texts were almost certainly written much later in the form we have them. I do not take any of this to be “literal” in the sense of a transcript of something that was really said (in Hebrew? which almost certainly didn’t exist at the time?) in either the thirteenth or fifteenth century B.C.

I take it as a highly stylized, symbolic narrative written centuries later to embody convictions that had grown up (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) in the Jewish community about how God had revealed Himself to them.

Is. It. True?

So you believe that this literally happened? And you’re an atheist? This makes absolutely no sense.

When you say “this” do you mean God telling the Hebrews that it’s ok to beat and mansluaghter slaves, or do you mean the fact that slaves were beaten and mansluaghtered?

The idea of an atheist who doesn’t accept basic historical criticism is kind of flabbergasting to me. It takes the OP’s claim about atheism and fundamentalism to new levels

The fact that you think that you can get away with (repeatedly) not explaining how such passages are true and take that to mean that I’m fundamentalist in my approach to Scripture… is not at all surprising from experience.

It is historically implausible that these texts date from the second millennium B.C.

For a fairly brief and accessible summary of historical-critical views on the OT (actually in a pretty modest, conservative form), with a few idiosyncratic opinions that I find fascinating and fairly plausible about who wrote some of the books, see Richard Elliott Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible. . These days, most scholars probably take a more “minimalist,” skeptical view than that. But of course, on the other hand most Christians hold to a more conservative view. So Friedman is a good place to start. (Kitchen’s The Historical Reliability of the Old Testament is a conservative alternative.)

Then in what way are those texts true? That’s the whole point why we’re here. Atheists don’t demand as-plainly-written readings of the Bible but do demand it be true as the Catechism claims it is.

Of course, no one reads the Bible in a vacuum. . . . .

But again, you prove the OP’s point. As a 21st-century person, you think you can just pick up a very ancient text and figure out when it was written by reading it, without paying any attention to the scholarship. If that isn’t a fundamentalist approach, I don’t know what would be:shrug:

I agree that I or any other atheist could be reading passages of the Bible incorrectly. I also think that so-called Biblical scholars can be reading passages incorrectly. I do not bow to anyone’s claim of unchallengability. What I’ve said multiple times now is that these discussions need to occur in an open marketplace of ideas where no position is assumed, no person’s statements are accepted simply due to their title, and Tradition is only worth what can demonstrated to be true.

Why, as an atheist, would you reject the conclusions of most critical scholars? I get why many conservative Christians and Jews do this. But why would you?

Christian scholars are not immune to sweeping things under the rug, to downplay monstrous acts, to call good that which is evil.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

As a historical account of the origins of Jewish law, I’m pretty sure it is inaccurate.

I’m sure you think this should have some sort of massive implications for my faith, but it just doesn’t.

On the contrary, accepting historical criticism is very helpful, for me personally, in helping me work through the difficult issues you are raising.

As you have pointed out very well, if we take the Torah to be “literally” God’s speech to ancient Hebrews revealing in precise detail his will for how they are to live as an example to the nations of what God wants for human beings in general, then it is not believable. That is to say, there are many things in the Torah that poorly reflect the character we believe God to have. I say this with all respect to Orthodox Jews, who do in fact believe in the perfection of the Torah. (But like traditional Christians, they have their own canons of interpretation that allow them to deal with some of these issues. And it’s not my job to either defend or criticize them here.)

The implications of your specific faith don’t matter to me. My concern is how we can determine which of several readings is the correct one for any portion of Scripture. As you’ve said for several of those portions you and I agree that they do not represent what occurred in an as-written way. In the same way you and I disagree on other portions of Scripture as to if they occurred as written. When huge swaths of Scripture are tossed aside you may not see a problem with that, but there are those Christians who are concerned. They would like answers and your appeals to authority may not be particularly convincing to some of them.

Because you’re beginning from the wrong end entirely. You’re disregarding all historical scholarship and assuming a very conservative Jewish/Christian view of when it was written and what kind of text it is, and then arguing against that. This makes no sense for an atheist.

Then explain it to me. What is the historical scholarship for that passage that says God told the Hebrews to not concern themselves with the ways of other cultures? What value do you give to those arguments for biblical slavery which says they had to take into account the cultures at the time?

But again, no serious historical scholar I know of (except perhaps some very conservative scholars whose religious commitments force them to accept this highly improbable premise) thinks that these laws were given in some sort of cultural vacuum to people without slaves.

Are you stating that the Hebrews did not escape slavery in Egypt or that they were in the desert before making it to the holy land? If you’re saying that those events did occur, then when did they acquire slaves? If you’re saying those events did not happen and that they had slaves well before receiving the law, why does it matter if the law was there to tell the Hebrews what was right and wrong?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say “know,” but I think it is indeed overwhelmingly likely that the Torah took its final form after the exile.

But you have been appearing to accept, uncritically, the idea that the Torah was created in the form we have it in the second millennium B.C., snip of an argument I didn’t make

If you were an angle you’d be 179.999999999999 degrees.

The whole gist of my four points was that the Torah was created before the Bible. I made no mention of the 2nd millennium BCE, just that first came the Torah then came the Old Testament.

Right. But if you were to tell me that the Book of Mormon was written in ancient times and inscribed on gold tablets, etc., I would start scratching my head and wondering why a non-Mormon accepted such things.

And again you’re arguing something I didn’t even reference in the slightest. Romans came first, then came the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon repeatedly quotes Romans. Therefore, the Book of Mormon was influenced by Romans. It’s all about how things that if two things are related and one comes before the other, it’s likely the first was an influence on the second and not the other way around.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

First of all, I wasn’t challenging your translation in my earlier post, but your claim about “God saying” that slaves were property.

Just to be precise, though, there are two different words here. In the Exodus passage the Hebrew word is “keseph,” which means most basically “silver” or “money.” So the slave is “keseph” because he was bought. In the other, the word is “ahuzah,” which usually means landed property or inheritance. Certainly both words can legitimately be translated as “property.” However, when we talk about a person being property,

Good.

because of Enlightenment assumptions about the implication of human dignity we assume that this is saying that the person isn’t really a person. And clearly that’s not the case in the Exodus passage–you don’t “avenge” property, even if it dies on the spot.

Oh, you were so close. Even in modern slavery (the awful “chattel slavery” canard) there were laws put in place to give basic protections to slaves even though they too were considered property.

I never said that God never spoke to anyone. You just made the point, again, that you do in fact assume that any real meaning must be “literal.”

The reason why God obviously did not “literally” speak to anyone outside the Incarnation is that God does not have vocal chords (again, leaving the Incarnation out of it).

Wait, wait, wait. You’re saying that God couldn’t have spoken to anybody was because of a lack of vocal chords? That is a new one. So God could not have generated the sounds of human speech perceptible to the Hebrews’ ears.

This is why apogetics is so much fun. No one is willing to limit the capability of God more than apologists. Why couldn’t he have spoken? No vocal chords (although he is described as having “back parts” in Exodus 33). Why couldn’t he have told the Israelites not to own slaves? He was limited by the culture of the time. It’s repsonses like these that answer your earlier question as to why atheists will disagree with the conclusions of Christian scholars.

Or, to go a bit farther, because God by definition surpasses all categories drawn from creatures (which all our categories, inevitably, are). Nothing we say can be true of God in exactly the same way it’s true of creatures. Hence, to use your own sacred text dictionary.com, it can’t be “literally” true, because it isn’t going to be true in its “primary and strict sense.” That is just an implication of believing in God at all.

To follow up on my previous statement, no one is so eager and willing to abuse language as an apologist.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Also, one point you missed was that I was specifically rejecting your claim that “God the Father” spoke in the OT. The works of the Trinity are indivisible, and the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, is the one in whom all God’s works of creation and revelation are accomplished.

That’s another unprovable unfalsifiable point for another thread.

Sure. You have a legal right to say whatever you like. But when you take it upon yourself to declare the rules by which Christians interpret their own Scriptures, you’re doing something unreasonable and even absurd.

Which of my suggestions do you disagree with? I thought they were incredibly basic. We use the same basic ideas when choosing a presidential candidate, deciding whether we should rezone a parcel of land, or allow a kid to watch a scary movie. Take into considering all options and hash out why one is preferable than the other logically.

And I have the same hope in reverse–so far it has not, particularly, been gratified. I do appreciate your clarity and honesty and desire to seek the truth. But I think your ideas about how language works, how we read texts, how traditions function, etc., are far too naive, and that you are far too confident in that naivete.

Until we get answers more nuanced than what essentially boils down to because-we-say-so then I think what you label naivete I would categorize as prudence.

No one is refusing to give reasoning. But the reasoning doesn’t have to play by your rules.

You call them my rules but they’re basic ideas as to how to discuss whether a certain viewpoint can be considered true, and they are as straightforward as can be.

Of course, as long as you adhere to the kind of rationalism you presently seem to hold, you aren’t going to be convinced of Catholicism. I’m not trying to convince you of the truth of Christianity at this point. The main subject of this thread is the claim that atheism and fundamentalism are “two peas in a pod,” and you have demonstrated this claim to be true in your case at least.

Of the two of us, you have demonstrated the most fundamentalist approach. Facts be damned, your approach is that it’s ok to discard those parts of scripture which are untrue in any sense if they do not favor your position.

What makes you think that I have “forgotten” any such thing?

Because of the many words that you’ve written here thus far. Any Christian position that differs from yours is not considered serious or obvious. It’s far, far easier to dismiss than to explain.